This Blueberry French Toast Bake is made with French bread, creamy custard, fresh blueberries and a delicious, buttery brown sugar streusel. It makes for an easy, scrumptious overnight breakfast casserole that is perfect for potlucks, Christmas morning and everything in between.
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- Easy Overnight Blueberry French Toast Bake
- More Blueberry Recipes
- What To Serve With Blueberry French Toast Casserole with Cream Cheese
- Ingredients in Blueberry French Toast Casserole
- How to Make Blueberry French Toast Bake
- Tips for making overnight French Toast Bake
- How to Store:
- Blueberry French Toast Bake Recipe
Easy Overnight Blueberry French Toast Bake
This easy-peasy make-ahead breakfast stuffs everything that you love about warm blueberry muffins into a baked French toast casserole. It’s such a perfectly simple comfort food that tastes great any time of the year. During the peak of summer, you can use fresh blueberries, or in the winter pull out a bag of frozen blueberries. Either way, this tastes delish.
If you aren’t as big of a blueberry fan as we are, feel free to try a different berry, or even use mixed berries. Another simple variation would be to sprinkle a hefty dose of lemon zest over the top of the blueberries, just before adding the cinnamon brown sugar streusel. For a real treat, try serving this blueberry breakfast dream with your favorite syrup and a big dollop of whipped cream. Yum!
More Blueberry Recipes
- Blueberry Loaves
- Lemon Blueberry mini loaves
- Blueberry Muffins
- Lemon Blueberry Scones
- Lemon Blueberry Bundt Cake
What To Serve With Blueberry French Toast Casserole with Cream Cheese
Does this French toast bake absolutely need something to do with it? Nope. It’s 100% delicious as is. But, it never hurts to spruce things up a bit. Here are our favorite Homemade Toppings. Some homemade whipped cream would be amazing on this too.
Homemade Sauces and Syrups
More Breakfast Recipes
Ingredients in Blueberry French Toast Casserole
- French Bread - you’ll need enough cubed bread to fill up a 9”x13” baking pan. When we have made this recipe, it takes about 10-12 slices or ¾ of a loaf of French bread. You could also substitute challah if you wanted to try something a little different. No matter what, it’s best if your bread is slightly stale so that it will soak up the liquid better. Store any remaining bread cubes in an airtight container to use for croutons, bread crumbs or another batch of French toast bake.
- Eggs - any kind of large whole eggs will work.
- Milk - we prefer whole milk, but you can substitute 2% if you’d like.
- Maple Syrup - you can use all maple syrup, or else substitute a touch of honey for some of the maple syrup.
- Vanilla Extract - pure vanilla extract tastes best.
- Cream Cheese - this should be cut into ½” pieces.
- Blueberries - you can use fresh blueberries or frozen blueberries for this breakfast casserole.
- Flour - we use all-purpose flour for this recipe.
- Butter - this will taste best with unsalted butter. You can use either room temperature butter, or else cut cold butter into small cubes.
- Brown Sugar - we use light brown sugar but you can use dark brown sugar if you want a little more molasses flavor.
- Cinnamon - any kind of ground cinnamon will work. You can also omit this if you prefer.
How to Make Blueberry French Toast Bake
- Spray or grease a 9 x 13" baking pan with non-stick cooking spray.
- Place the cubed French bread, in an even layer, into the 9 x 13" baking dish/casserole dish. You want the bread to fill all the way to the top of the dish.
- In a large bowl, add the eggs, milk, maple syrup, and vanilla extract, and whisk until the egg yolks are broken and all of the ingredients are well combined. Pour the egg mixture evenly over the cubed bread.
- Place the cream cheese chunks evenly over the top of the bread mixture, then sprinkle the blueberries on top.
- In a small mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, make the streusel topping by adding the flour, butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Use a spatula or spoon to mix until the butter chunks in the streusel are pea-sized.
- Sprinkle the streusel topping evenly over the French toast bake, then cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. You can make it ahead for 4-48 hours.
- When you're ready to cook the French toast bake, be sure to take the casserole out of the fridge and let it come to room tempreture while you're preheating the oven to 350 degrees F. Be sure to allow the baking dish to come close to room temperature before baking (particularly if you use a glass dish), or at least 30 minutes.
- Bake at 350 for about 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until the edges of the French toast bake are golden brown and it is cooked through completely. Let cool slightly before slicing, then serve with the syrup of your choice and whipped cream. Enjoy!
Yes! You can freeze this unbaked breakfast casserole if you want to make it even further ahead of time. Just prep everything up until baking, wrap well in both plastic wrap and aluminum foil and store frozen in the baking dish for up to 1 month.
The day before baking, pull the casserole from the freezer and let it defrost in the fridge overnight. The next morning, pull out to room temperature and bake as directed.
Morning Of: If you don’t have time for an overnight casserole, you can still make it work - just give yourself an additional 20 minutes.
-Add the 1” bread cubes to a large bowl and pour the egg and milk mixture over.
-Toss lightly and let sit at room temp for at least 10 minutes.
-Toss again and let sit for at least another 10 minutes or so before you put it into your baking dish.
-You can now add your streusel topping to your oven-baked french toast and bake as directed.
Tips for making overnight French Toast Bake
- There are a lot of types of bread that will work for this recipe. You can use french bread, Challa, Brioche, or even day-old cinnamon rolls for this recipe. Use your favorite and don't be afraid to try a new bread from the day-old section of the bakery.
- Substitute the blueberries for strawberries, raspberries, or peaches.
- Or you can leave all the fruit out for a classic french toast bake casserole and serve it with simple maple syrup.
- You can make this overnight breakfast casserole without the cream cheese, just omit it from the recipe and bake as directed.
- Add your favorite homemade syrup or sauce. Top with whipped cream.
- You can also make this with frozen blueberries.
- You can also add 2 teaspoons for fresh lemon zest for a lemon blueberry french toast bake recipe.
How to Store:
If you have any leftovers, wrap well in plastic wrap or aluminum foil and store in the fridge for up to 3 days.
To reheat, you can warm individual portions in the microwave, or else cover the top with aluminum foil (so that it doesn't brown too much) and reheat in a 325-degree oven for about 15 minutes, or until warmed through.
Blueberry French Toast Bake Recipe
Ingredients
- ¾ loaf French Bread cut into 1" cubes (or enough to fill a 9 x 13" pan)
- 12 large Eggs
- 2 cups Milk
- ⅓ cup Maple Syrup
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
- 2 8 oz packages Cream Cheese cut into ½" pieces
- 1 ½ cups Blueberries fresh or frozen
Streusel Topping
- ⅓ cup All-Purpose Flour
- 6 Tablespoons Butter cut into small chunks
- ⅓ cup Light Brown Sugar
- ½ teaspoon Cinnamon
Instructions
- Spray or grease a 9 x 13" baking pan with non-stick cooking spray.
- Place the cubed French bread, in an even layer, into the 9 x 13" baking dish. You want the bread to fill all the way to the top of the dish.
- In a large bowl, add the eggs, milk, maple syrup and vanilla extract, and whisk until the egg yolks are broken and all of the ingredients are well-combined. Pour the egg mixture evenly over the cubed bread.
- Place the cream cheese chunks evenly over the top of the bread mixture, then sprinkle the blueberries on top.
- In a small mixing bowl, or the bowl of a stand mixer, make the streusel topping by adding the flour, butter, brown sugar and cinnamon. Use a spatula or spoon to mix until the butter chunks in the streusel are pea-sized.
- Sprinkle the streusel topping evenly over the French toast bake, then cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for 4-48 hours.
- When you're ready to cook the French toast bake, be sure to take the casserole out of the fridge while you preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Be sure to allow the baking dish to come close to room temperature before baking (particularly if you use a glass dish).
- Bake at 350 for about 1 hour, or until the edges of the French toast bake are golden brown and it is cooked through completely. Let cool slightly before slicing, then serve with the syrup of your choice and whipped cream. Enjoy!
Nutrition
Here are some other breakfast casserole recipes to try!
- Sausage Egg Biscuit Casserole
- Apple Cinnamon French Toast Bake
- Pumpkin Stuffed French Toast with Pecan Crumble Topping
- Sweet Potato Breakfast Casserole
- Easy Coconut French Toast Bake
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This Blueberry French Toast Bake stuffs everything that you love about warm blueberry muffins into baked French toast. Your entire family will love this super delicious overnight breakfast casserole, made with French bread, creamy custard, fresh blueberries and a deliciously buttery brown sugar streusel.
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